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Saturday, October 16, 2010

Royal News Roundup

On Sunday the Prince and Princess of Orange attended what was a rather sad occasion for your humble blogger. At Willemstad in Curacao they witnessed the official end of the Netherlands Antilles. The islands of Bonaire, Saba and Statia will become municipalities of the Netherlands while Curacao and St Maarten have become independent though, like Aruba, they are thankfully retaining the Dutch monarchy and are now constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Prince and Princess met with some of the locals on their trip, toured an adult education center and even played a little baseball with some local schoolchildren. Back home, HM Queen Beatrix was busy swearing in her new government at the Hague on Thursday.

In the Far East, Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden had a seemingly enjoyable time visiting and seeing the sights of China during a trip to Beijing and Shanghai to promote Swedish business interests and visit the Sweden pavilion at the World Expo. To the south, in Vietnam, the city of Hanoi (formerly known as Thanh Long) is celebrated its millennium anniversary but a new film about the royal founder of the city, Ly Cong Uan (Ly Thai To) which stars Vietnamese actors in the leading roles but mostly Chinese actors in the supporting roles and which was filmed mostly in China. Emperor Ly Thai To was the founder of the Ly dynasty and the time he moved the capital to Thanh Long (“ascending dragon”) Vietnam had only fairly recently emerged from a thousand years of Chinese rule, which makes such national tensions at the time all the more strongly felt. Some changes are expected before the final release.

Amongst the Scandinavian royals HRH Prince Christian of Denmark celebrated his fifth birthday yesterday. The Mad Monarchist wishes the little prince and future King of Denmark a happy birthday and many, many more. HM Queen Margrethe II of Denmark welcomed the President of Ireland to her country on Monday for an official three day visit. A foreign visit did not go so well in neighboring Norway where the wrong anthem was played when HM King Harald V welcomed the President of the Swiss Confederation. The King later apologized for the error. Also this week the Queen of Sweden joined her daughter Princess Madeleine in New York City to launch a new campaign on the part of the World Childhood Foundation in cooperation with SIRIUS satellite radio to raise awareness of their activities and goals.

In southern Europe, this week His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI ordered the formation of a new Pontifical Council that will focus on the “New Evangelization”, particularly the re-evangelization of Europe. The Holy Father noted that while secularization continues the Christian roots of certain areas are still alive but that other regions have been almost totally de-Christianized. On Sunday at the opening of a synod of bishops from the Middle East the Pontiff spoke of the “false gods of the day” among which he included “public opinion” among those ideologies enslaving men and being elevated to the status of divinities. I’m sure somewhere Gregory XVI was smiling. In Spain a new book about the Prince and the Princess of the Asturias presents a refreshingly positive view of the next generation of Spanish royals and confidently declares that Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia are “Prepared to Rule”. In Monaco Prince Albert II and fiance Charlene Wittstock hosted a gala dinner in Monte Carlo for the Ireland Fund of Monaco. Earlier this week the Prince, after attending the Commonwealth Games in India, went to China where he visited the Monaco pavilion in Shanghai with sister Princess Stephanie.

In the Middle East a recent tape released by the terrorist network of Osama bin Laden again threatened the members of the Saudi Royal Family with assassination. Such threats are taken very seriously as last year alone assassination attempts were made against Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdul Aziz and Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz. On a happier note, the King of Jordan was pleased to welcome the President of Finland to the Royal Palace in Amman on Sunday.

Finally, in Great Britain the many employees of Her Majesty the Queen were less than happy when it was announced that their expected Christmas party has been canceled due to concerns over appearances because of the current economic crisis. Somehow I doubt the bureaucrats and members of parliament will be cutting back on their own festivities. The Queen and the Royal Family will of course be fine but, and this is the part the class-envy pinkos never seem to get, it is the humble employees who are the real losers here; the maids, the footmen, the gardeners etc. Those who incite class hatred against monarchy and, in this case, the British Royal Family never seem to stop and consider how many average working men and women the monarchy employs and how their jobs are threatened by constant budget cuts for the royals and even threats to the existence of the monarchy. However, budgetary cuts have not stopped the charitable impulse of the House of Windsor as HRH the Prince of Wales recently answered a call for help from Haiti, sending out his architectural charity to aid in the rebuilding of Port-au-Prince. Similar work has been done in places as far flung as Kingston and Kabul but this will be the biggest such rebuilding challenge the Prince’s charity has undertaken so far.